On the morning of September 7, on the northern outskirts of Shenzhen, a woman murdered her five-month-old daughter before attempting to kill herself. She was stopped by police and is currently being treated in a hospital, where her condition is stable. The motive behind her violence remains unclear, and authorities are still investigating the case.
The murder-suicide attempt took place in the woman's home in Guihua Xin Cun, in the Guanlan area. In a statement on Weibo, Longhua police said that it happened around 10.30am. The woman, whose last name is Liu, is a 32-year-old migrant from Hunan.
Longhua police released a brief announcement on Weibo
According to a security guard who works in Guihua Xin Cun, on the day of the incident Liu's husband had gone out to buy medicine for the baby. He came home to find a tragedy on his hands, and immediately called the police.
A resident in the area said authorities responded quickly: “About 10 minutes after calling police, nearby police came, cordoned off the area." They successfully prevented Liu from killing herself, and took her to the hospital.
The apartment building where Liu, her husband, and her child lived together
The whole incident left people in Guihua Xin Cun shaken. Ms. Su, who lives in the area, commented: "It's hard to believe she would kill her own daughter." According to her, Liu had been looking after her daughter ever since she got back to Shenzhen after the Chinese New Year holiday. To Su, at least, Liu had always seemed like a doting mother.
“Usually she’d often bring the baby out to play, you could see she really cherished her daughter, often didn’t eat until very late, had to wait until the child fell asleep."
Recently the baby had gotten sick, causing Liu to be concerned. Su said that the new mother even went without fan or AC during hot summer nights for fear of her child's condition getting worse. As a result, Liu hadn't been sleeping well lately.
Local resident Mr. Wang said that he'd heard Liu and her husband had argued recently, although another person in the neighborhood said the couple seemed to have always been very close. Yet another resident speculated that the new mother might have suffered from depression.
It seems that, until police release more information, we're still in the dark about the reason for this horrific incident.
[Images via Shenzhen Evening News, Weibo, Southern Metropolis Daily]
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